Home » Frame Automation Tools (Windows)

Frame Automation Tools (Windows)

If you don’t want to use the FDK directly via C or C++, there are options for scripting the automation of Framemaker.

 For Windows, the main alternatives are:

  • Framescript 
    Certainly well-known, well-supported, and useable.
    • The licensing cost is not insignificant… but as there are no free, open-source alternatives with comparable scope, it’s certainly worth considering.
    • It’s got its own scripting language. While it shouldn’t be hard to pick up, it’s another thing to learn, and it won’t interface easily to anything else.
  • The CudSpan suite of freeware tools, including DoBatch and CudLog.
    These have a good reputation in some quarters, but seem to be more or less abandoned.

    (Frankly, we haven’t tested these. The lack of support makes us nervous, and they seem a bit… dated. We’re afraid to install them.)

  • DZBatcher
    Largely, a reproduction of the Solaris fmbatch utility, for the Windows platform. Free and unsupported but apparently used in-house by the creators, Miramo, who specialize in (rather expensive) Framemaker consulting services.

    I know of one significant Framemaker project for automating build processing which at least started with DZBatcher, but ultimately it proved to take only a couple of person-months for someone with C programming background to learn enough of the FDK API to far exceed DZBatcher’s capabilities. If what you need is in there, it’s a great option. If what you need isn’t in there, well… you’re outta there.

  • FrameAC
    As near as we can tell, a library that exposes many Framemaker features via COM objects, so they can be called from Visual Basic applications. Probably also supports interaction from VBScript, and possibly from any language on Windows that can access COM components. A terrific idea… whatever language you know, you can automate Frame with, and you can integrate Frame with anything else accessible from COM, such as databases, pulling content from the Web, sending e-mails… Also, it’s commercially supported, by Mekon, a European firm offering Framemaker-related add-ons and services.

    Downsides: Costs even more than Framescript, at least in small numbers.  Do your own homework on the cost of FrameAC licenses for your application, though– a price list is here.

Anyway, this information is all preliminary to the proper Framemaker/FDK Source Wiki, currently under development.